Staff picks: Sunday’s TV logjam, Maria Semple, ‘The Tin Drum’

I just love Sunday nights when the television schedule is jam-packed with such high-profile premieres and finales. First off, there’s the third season premiere of the intricate, popular fantasy series “Game of Thrones” (9 p.m. HBO). At the same time over on AMC the third season of the gruesome, but incredibly watchable “The Walking Dead” comes to a close. If your taste runs a bit more genteel, KCTS offers up the season premiere of “Call the Midwife” at 8 p.m., followed by the premiere of a miniseries about the founder of the famous London department store, “Mr. Selfridge.” Fire up the DVR and pass the remote.

If, like many people in Seattle, you read Maria Semple’s “Where’d You Go Bernadette” and started to wonder if your kid is too coddled, your hair is too gray and if those Microsoft Connectors are marriage-killers on wheels, well, you’ll want a seat at Town Hall at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, when Semple will sit with “Book Lust” star Nancy Pearl and address the very city she has sent up in her best-seller. Tickets, $5 (www.townhallseattle.org).

Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times staff columnist

DVDs

‘The Tin Drum’

Volker Schlöndorff’s film adaptation of Günter Grass’ great novel, set in a Germany heading toward the Nazi era, gets the top-drawer Criterion treatment with this director’s cut. Apart from 20 minutes of new footage (so neatly dovetailed into the DVD version you may not notice them), the extras include a droll and detailed recent interview with Schlöndorff, plus chats with the film’s stars at the time of its 1979 theatrical release. The biggest draw: David Bennent, whose performance as Oskar Matzerath — the kid who, at age 3, takes one look at the adult world around him and decides to stop growing — is flat-out astonishing.